SIREN: IBM PLAYS DEFENSE AMID NSA FEARS — Tony has the scoop: "As the furor surrounding NSA surveillance continues to threaten tech giants’ bottom lines, IBM is mounting a new public-relations push: The company is promising customers it’s not sharing their data with the spy agency, while trying to ward off potential foreign trade restrictions. In an open letter published Friday, IBM stressed it 'has not provided client data' to the NSA 'under the program known as PRISM,' or as part of any program 'involving the bulk collection of content or metadata.' IBM also urged foreign governments not to react to the NSA revelations by implementing trade barriers, like requirements that customers’ data be stored only in the countries where they reside. Those and other restrictions, proposed in the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s leaks, could damage the tech sector, IBM said — and the company’s CEO personally delivered that message in Washington this week." MORE HERE: http://politico.pro/1i97ARA

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ROCKEFELLER: COMMERCE MARKUP COMING BACK AFTER RECESS — The Senate Commerce Committee’s top dog expects his panel’s twice-postponed markup to resurface “as soon as we get back” from next week’s recess, he told MT off the Senate floor. That vote was slated to cover six bills, including the patent demand letter bill stewarded by Sen. Claire McCaskill — though that measure has earned a sizable amount of opposition from groups in patent-heavy industries. But Rockefeller said at this point he thinks the rescheduled markup will include the same set of bills, meaning the McCaskill bill would be on the list. More patent fun after the jump.

COMCAST MERGER COULD UPEND SPORTS TV LANDSCAPE — Brooks has the story for Pros this morning: “Comcast’s play for Time Warner Cable already has some in the industry worried about cable and broadband competition, but that could be only part of the game...If regulators approve the merger, Comcast and NewsCorp will control 80 percent of the country’s regional sports networks. Comcast’s ability to control large swaths of the sports programming marketplace should capture the attention of regulators, given its importance in the modern video marketplace, said Public Knowledge President and CEO Gene Kimmleman, a former Justice Department antitrust official..Live sports has emerged as the must-see TV of this century. It can be a cash cow that makes college conferences bigger, player salaries higher and feeds the growth of regional sports networks.” http://politico.pro/1lD9nz8

LAWMAKERS ENVISION ANTI-PIRACY IMPROVEMENTS, BUT NOT VIA CONGRESS — House Judiciary legislators clearly would like to see some fixes to how the Digital Millennium Copyright Act works in practice, if Thursday’s hearing on the statute was any indication. But whether it’s due to a recognition that legislation moves slower than technology — or a desire to stave off another SOPA-like debate — they’d like private-sector efforts take the lead. Voluntary agreements to discourage piracy have already been struck between the content industry and ISPs, ad networks, and payment processors, though copyright holders have called for more talks dealing with search engines or sites that host content.

So is there room for further discussions? “I think we’re always looking to improve tools,” Google copyright counsel Katie Oyama told MT after the hearing. “New innovations in content ID, any new improvements in notice and takedown. I don’t think that’s a place for government regulators to be in the mix, because we’re actually seeing great collaborations between the different industries.” The Department of Commerce is trying to foster those discussions amongst industry players with a DMCA workshop next Thursday.

GOOD FRIDAY MORNING and welcome to Morning Tech, where we’re inching toward the close of the week, but not before we cross a few more items off our tech policy to-do list. Let us know what’s on yours as things move toward St. Patrick’s Day — we’re at abyers@politico.com and @byersalex. And don’t miss the rest of the team’s contact info after speed read.

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ICYMI, ZUCKERBERG TALKS NSA WITH OBAMA — Your MT-er’s evening file: “Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called President Barack Obama Wednesday night to complain about U.S. government actions that are undermining trust in the Internet, after a report that described how the National Security Agency posed as a Facebook server to inject malicious software into targets’ computers...National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden didn’t provide details of Obama’s discussion with Zuckerberg but pointed to an NSA statement Thursday that pushed back on the report by Glenn Greenwald in The Intercept, which described the NSA practices.” http://politi.co/1iHbyzR

SJC EYES PATENT MARKUP FOR EARLY APRIL — The Senate Judiciary Committee’s patent activity is likely to get underway in earnest early next month, according to a statement from Chairman Patrick Leahy Thursday. Leahy said he’ll list the bill on his panel’s docket for March 27, which under committee rules would likely mean it gets taken up during the next business meeting.

-- MEANWHILE, FEINSTEIN’S PTO FUNDING MEASURE COULD BE BIPARTISAN WIN OR POISON PILL: The California senator introduced a measure Thursday designed to keep fees collected by the patent office in the hands of the PTO and not other government agencies. It’s the latest move in a broader effort from lawmakers to better fund the PTO, but injecting the idea into the Senate’s patent debate could weigh down the bigger reform effort, some patent reform proponents worry. A similar idea was dismissed on party lines during the House Judiciary Committee’s patent vote last fall.

BROADCASTERS FIGHT WHEELER’S JSA PROPOSAL — NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith isn’t happy with the FCC, and the former Oregon senator took his concerns to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn this week. He told her that a proposal Chairman Tom Wheeler is pushing to limit broadcasters’ ability to use sharing arrangements to reduce cost uses a “sledgehammer where a scalpel, if anything, is far more appropriate.”

“If the Commission is serious about promoting localism and diversity, it should work with the broadcasting industry to find the most effective ways to do so,” he told the commissioner, according to an ex parte filing. "The current course betrays those values and hinders broadcasters from providing the unique local and diverse content no other industry delivers.” http://bit.ly/1iHd6Kj

--GOP SLAMS SEPARATE FCC EFFORT ON JSAs: The broadcaster sharing agreements are a hot topic at the FCC. Besides Wheeler’s proposal, the FCC’s Media Bureau released new guidelines on those deals that will put them under even closer scrutiny. But both FCC Republicans and the top Energy and Commerce committee GOP-ers are calling the Media Bureau’s effort a misuse of authority. “This end-run around the full commission is a step back for transparency and reform, and sadly, consumers are the ones who stand to lose the most,” Reps. Greg Walden and Fred Upton said in a statement.

'OPEN MIKE' LAUNCHES WITH MACON PHILLIPS — Check out the debut video of POLITICO's new weekly series, "Open Mike," featuring a conversation between Mike Allen and the digital diplomacy lead at the State Department, Macon Phillips. Watch Phillips' take on how social media and digital strategies are helping shape diplomacy in Ukraine, and hear his thoughts on the popular Deathstar petition: http://politi.co/1iHfpNk

PANELISTS: HILL’S GOT A WAYS TO GO ON UNDERSTANDING TECH TOOLS, POLICY -- Lawmakers may have improved their technological prowess but they have a long way to go before Congress can consider itself tech literate, industry representatives and policy experts emphasized last night at a roundtable hosted by the Internet Association and Harvard's Institute of Politics. Mieke Eoyang, a former staffer for Silicon Valley Rep. Anna Eshoo who’s now with Third Way, said government often fails to reach out to the region about key tech issues. Even as lawmakers jump on Twitter and Facebook, said David Almacy, the White House Internet Director under George W. Bush, Congress still "makes the mistake just to push a message but not use these tools to have a conversation." And Chris Massey of the popular ride-sharing service Lyft, warned hearings where "we're talking about advancing sharing concepts and members are still talking about Craigslist...will affect legislation going forward."

MOBILE FIRM LOOKOUT RELEASING CODE FOR NTIA APP PRIVACY GUIDELINES — San Francisco-based firm Lookout is unveiling an open-source toolkit this morning designed to make it easy for app developers to launch privacy notices that fit with the mobile app transparency guidelines derived via the NTIA talks last year. New NTIA discussions are now focused on facial recognition technology, but participants are still working to implement the NTIA mobile code of conduct in the real world. Last week, the App Developers Alliance and Intuit announced their own effort to make computer code available for short-form privacy notices, and the Association for Competitive Technology has been refining and testing its own code offering since the app guidelines were finalized last summer. More from Lookout here: http://bit.ly/O9rqC2

SPEED READ

TARGET DIDN’T ACT EARLY ON CYBER ALERT TIED TO BREACH: The firm is studying whether a different reaction could have staved off a data breach, Reuters reports: http://reut.rs/O9DX8n

SENSENBRENNER STILL PUSHING ON CONGRESSIONAL SPYING: He writes the DOJ again, demanding answers tied to a hearing last month, The Hill reports: http://bit.ly/O9Dt21

APPLE’S NEW DISCLAIMER ABOUT IN-APP PURCHASES: In the wake of the FTC settlement, the new version of iOS lets users know they’ll eventually have to re-enter their password to make in-app purchases, Apple Insider reports: http://bit.ly/O9DGCk

FCC GREENLIGHTS AT&T-LEAP TRANSACTION: AT&T’s pick-up of the Cricket Wireless operator is in the public interest, the agency finds. The Verge with more: http://bit.ly/O9DNOh

#ASKPOLITICO TODAY AT NOON: Join POLITICO Magazine Editor Susan Glasser, author of the book “Kremlin Rising,” for a live Twitter chat on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine gamble and the crisis in Crimea. Tweet your questions with hashtag #ASKPOLITICO.

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About The Author

Alex Byers is a technology reporter for POLITICO Pro. He was previously a senior Web producer at POLITICO, where he helped run POLITICO's Twitter and Facebook accounts. Before joining the Web team, he graduated from The George Washington University, where he served as the 2009-10 editor-in-chief of The GW Hatchet, the school's award-winning student newspaper.

Previously, he has interned at washingtonpost.com, Dateline NBC and General Mills Inc. He hails from Minneapolis and is an avid Twins fan, musician and golfer.